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Most of us will be familiar with phrases such as "a team of people",
"a flock of birds", or a "pack of cards", which we use to describe a
group (large or small) of things, like persons, animals, or objects.
"Team", "flock", and "pack" are examples of a collective noun
- a word which refers to a collection of things that together can be
considered as a whole. There are many collective nouns in everyday
usage, and you may not even be aware that you're using them when you
talk about the church "choir", a school "committee", your "pair" of
shoes, or that "bouquet" of flowers.
Collective nouns are particularly fascinating when talking about
birds and animals. We're all familiar with a herd of cows, a litter
of puppies, and a school of fish, but it turns out that there is a
vast array of mind-boggling (and dare I say, rather obscure)
collective nouns pertaining to specific kinds of birds and animals.
For example, have you ever heard of a piteousness of doves, a
mischief of magpies, a parliament of owls, or a gatling of
woodpeckers? Did you know that when a gaggle of geese takes flight,
it then becomes a skein of geese? And similarly, a paddling of ducks
(on water) can quickly transform to a doppling of ducks (when
diving) or a plump of ducks (when flying).
So where did all of these weird and wonderful collective nouns come
from? For those keen linguists, many collective nouns which are used
to describe birds and animals are also known as terms of venery.
"Venery" is an archaic word for hunting, and of course, hunting has
long been the sport of nobility. In the 14th and 15th
centuries, hunting was all the rage in England and France, and this
led to the development of a specialized and almost whimsical
vocabulary related to the hunt. Terms of venery were fanciful and
fashionable, where the bravest might hunt a pride of lions while
appreciating a charm of goldfinches but avoiding a murmuration of
starlings and a murder of crows. Also originating from this time is
"an incredulity of cuckolds" but I'll leave discussion of that
collective noun for another time.
While most terms of venery appear to have fallen out of use in the
16th century, there seems to have been a bit of a revival
in recent years. There are now several books about collective nouns
(for example, see An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton) and
many novels use them in titles or book chapters (e.g. The Atomic
Weight of Love by Elizabeth Church). For those interested in
birds, you can find a summary of collective nouns for UK birds –
many of which can also be found in Canada – at the following
website:
https://www.birdspot.co.uk/culture/collective-nouns-for-birds
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I'm not aware of any particular linguistic authority that "approves"
the adoption of collective nouns, so, just like in medieval times,
we still can still create imaginative (and evocative) modern
collective nouns to use and enjoy, such as a tuxedo of penguins, a
destruction of cats, an ambush of tigers, and a wisdom of wombats.
In this spirit, I wonder if we could also make our own contribution
to the lexicon. For example, could we call a group of SNS members
watching whooping cranes or great grey owls an "admiration of
birders"? I'll let you decide.
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